CatMomWendy
Member Since 2012
My 14 YO diabetic Nelson has been diabetic since age 9. He is on Lantus. I adopted him last year on 9/7/12 from a shelter. We switched him to wet food/high protein, etc last fall and that has gone well. Fast forward to Aug 2013. His insulin needs were decreasing and a fructosamine test came in at 295 which was excellent. But about the same time, he was getting pickier about food yet his belly was very round. We visited the vet in early Aug but did not uncover why he was not eating well. The eating has continued to go down but his belly was round like a basketball so we knew it was not from over eating. A vet visit on 9/3 showed extensive fluid retention in the abdomen and some around the lungs. About 8 ozs. of chyle fluid was drained from his belly.
A visit to the special vet yesterday for an ultrasound showed no cancer and an echocardiogram showed his heart is fine. That is good news but does not give us an answer as to where this chyllous effusion is coming from. They drained 40 ozs. of fluid from his belly! That's 5 cups in addition to the 1 cup 2 days earlier. He literally lost 3 lbs. of weight. They did not remove fluid around the lungs as it is not life threatening at this time and he is showing no signs of labored breathing. They suggested switching him to a low fat diet and I have since found vet reports on line that support this suggestion for this condition. We picked up canned W/D (he was on Fancy Feast Classics, raw, freeze dried). His appetite has still not come back (he just came home last night) and he barely picked at the W/D. I literally am force feeding thawed raw pellets as he has lost a lot of muscle tone.
With the fluid build up likely to come back, we are starting him on rutin, a vitamin supplement the vet suggested. We discussed steroids to try to shrink the chyle duct that is leaking somewhere. We also discussed surgery which we were already told would be invasive. We are meeting with the surgeon on Tuesday. We did not want to start the steroids now in case we opt for surgery because it slows the healing process and will also drive his diabetes wild.
My question to the group is what food options do you know of that are lower fat yet can still, at least sort of, maintain the lower carbs. I looked up W/D on the Catinfo.org list and see it has 25 carbs per can. He can be picky so I am not sure even if his appetite returns if he will like/want W/D. If we still go the steroids route, what am I in for? This condition is far more life threatening than the diabetes so it totally trumps my current feeding regimen. Diabetes I can treat with insulin....fluid around his lungs preventing him from breathing is not something I can do (ER vet visit to remove if you can get them there fast enough). We were told his is very rare yet we had another cat that passed with fluid around the lungs back in 2005. Lucky us for having 2. But he suffered at the end because he literally was suffocating while we were driving him to the ER. I want to do everything I can to fend off this condition and that requires feeding a low fat diet (apparently the fluid that builds up is made up of fat so limiting that within the food limits the fluid production/accumulation).
Thank you for any suggestions you may have. I know this is not 100% diabetic related but I was hoping someone might have feeding ideas. I do not keep the spreadsheets that can be shared on here (I just use a notebook) but the diabetes part is not really my question today. The specialty vet yesterday was impressed with how we have managed that aspect of Nelson.
A visit to the special vet yesterday for an ultrasound showed no cancer and an echocardiogram showed his heart is fine. That is good news but does not give us an answer as to where this chyllous effusion is coming from. They drained 40 ozs. of fluid from his belly! That's 5 cups in addition to the 1 cup 2 days earlier. He literally lost 3 lbs. of weight. They did not remove fluid around the lungs as it is not life threatening at this time and he is showing no signs of labored breathing. They suggested switching him to a low fat diet and I have since found vet reports on line that support this suggestion for this condition. We picked up canned W/D (he was on Fancy Feast Classics, raw, freeze dried). His appetite has still not come back (he just came home last night) and he barely picked at the W/D. I literally am force feeding thawed raw pellets as he has lost a lot of muscle tone.
With the fluid build up likely to come back, we are starting him on rutin, a vitamin supplement the vet suggested. We discussed steroids to try to shrink the chyle duct that is leaking somewhere. We also discussed surgery which we were already told would be invasive. We are meeting with the surgeon on Tuesday. We did not want to start the steroids now in case we opt for surgery because it slows the healing process and will also drive his diabetes wild.
My question to the group is what food options do you know of that are lower fat yet can still, at least sort of, maintain the lower carbs. I looked up W/D on the Catinfo.org list and see it has 25 carbs per can. He can be picky so I am not sure even if his appetite returns if he will like/want W/D. If we still go the steroids route, what am I in for? This condition is far more life threatening than the diabetes so it totally trumps my current feeding regimen. Diabetes I can treat with insulin....fluid around his lungs preventing him from breathing is not something I can do (ER vet visit to remove if you can get them there fast enough). We were told his is very rare yet we had another cat that passed with fluid around the lungs back in 2005. Lucky us for having 2. But he suffered at the end because he literally was suffocating while we were driving him to the ER. I want to do everything I can to fend off this condition and that requires feeding a low fat diet (apparently the fluid that builds up is made up of fat so limiting that within the food limits the fluid production/accumulation).
Thank you for any suggestions you may have. I know this is not 100% diabetic related but I was hoping someone might have feeding ideas. I do not keep the spreadsheets that can be shared on here (I just use a notebook) but the diabetes part is not really my question today. The specialty vet yesterday was impressed with how we have managed that aspect of Nelson.
